Labor
Day weekend is host to dozens of Grand Prix chess tournaments and State
Championships across the United States resulting in what the late Jerry Hanken
coined "Labor Day Madness." Each year, CLO posts Labor Day round-ups
to offer insight into some of America's most vibrant chess communities.Our first
labor day round-up features tournaments from North Carolina, New York, Texas
and Maryland. We'll be posting more stories from the grand weekend of State
Championships so if you're an organizer or player, be sure to send your stories
games to [email protected] in for
possible publication. North Carolinaby FM Mike Klein

Esserman and Kacheishvili face off

More than 230 players gathered in Charlotte for the NC
Open this Labor Day weekend, making it one of the largest non-scholastic
tournaments in the state's history. It was also one of the strongest. No
competition in the past two decades of the Old North State could come close to
the six GMs, ten IMs, one WIM, and slew of FMs, LMs and NMs that were attracted
to this five-round Swiss. Seven of the titled players finished with four points
to share first place.Tournament organizers Gary Newsom and Walter High are in
their second year of overhauling the event, and the organizational efforts that
produced such a quality turnout will be the subject of a lengthier article inChess Life.The sprint for the $2,000 guaranteed first place prize
culminated with two grandmaster versus grandmaster matchups in the final
round.GMs Giorgi Kacheishvili and
Sergey Kudrin matched up on board one, while Alex Shabalov and Lubomir Ftacnik
paired on board two. IM Irina Krush joined the GMs on 3.5/4 and took white
versus GM Alonso Zapata (3/4) on board three.

GM Ftacnik and IM Krush

Board two was actually a repeat of an earlier game.
Shabalov and Ftacnik arrived in Charlotte a day early to play a consultation
game at the Queen City Chess Association (Charlotte became an aptly-named chess
city just before the Revolutionary War, thanks to the German Queen Charlotte of
Mecklenburg, wife of King George III). Shabalov shepherded his group in one
room, while the other half of the audience consulted with Ftacnik.In that game, Shabalov put his first move to a vote, and
the group was split evenly between 1. e4 and 1. d4. The tiebreaker came from
the grandmaster's pocket. "Here we have a grandmaster coming for his expertise,
and here he goes flipping a coin on move one!" Newsom joked. Fittingly for the
club, the queen's pawn won, and produced an exciting encounter.

Board one went much longer, with Kudrin leaving the
notorious b-pawn unprotected. Kacheishvili took the bait and after much
struggle consolidated to a pawn-up ending. Still, Kudrin maintained enough
activity to liquidate and the game was also agreed drawn.

Krush could then
take clear first on board three. She played nearly the full time, trying to
prove her exchange sacrifice was sound. A better position eventually soured,
and Zapata took the full point to join his fellow GMs with 4/5. IMs Justin
Sarkar and Yury Lapshun also won to join them as co-champions. With the large
tie, each player took home $715 in prize money.

Krush joined fellow IMs John Bartholomew, Oladapu Adu,
Carlos Perdomo and local IM Alexander Matros for a tie for 8th
place. Charlottean teenager Josh Mu, fresh off winning the World Open
Under-2200 section, became a master at the NC Open and shared first place
under-2200 with Dominique Myers.

Sulia Mason won the Under 2000 section, Charles Coleman
won the Under 1700, and Kapish Potula won the Under 1400.

Jeffery Xiong

Texas: The Southwest Open--A Tale of Three Players by Franc Guadalupe The first half of the 77th Annual Southwest Open clearly
belonged to 10-year old Jeffery Xiong.He entered the event with a lofty 2279 rating and quickly disposed of
his lower-rated first round opponent. He then proceeded to take advantage of a
miscalculation by his second round opponent, GM Denes Boros, and skillfully
converted it into a win.He followed
that victory with draws in the next two rounds against two more opponents rated
over 2500...Going into the last round, the star of the second half of
the tournament was UTD freshman Patrycja Labedz from Poland.She entered the tournament with a USCF
provisional rating of 2126 and a FIDE rating of 2091.After losing her first round game against GM Ioan Chirila, she
put up a string of five consecutive wins, including victories against GM Boros
and GM Milos Pavlovic in Rounds 5 and 6.That earned her a spot at the top board against the only other player
with five points: Julio Sadorra was awarded the GM title only three months
ago.He is a very quiet and unassuming
sophomore at UTD.You could not meet a
nicer guy...unless you are at the opposite side of the chess board.After an exciting victory against Chirila
in Round 5 and a draw against the top seed, GM Valentin Yotov, in Round 6,
Julio was the only other player with five points. He faced WFM Patrycja Labedz
in the final round.

WFM Labedz and GM Sadorra

Twenty-nine moves
after the game commenced, the title was his.

Through his outstanding performance, Jeffery's rating
increased to 2309, now the top in the Nation for a 10-year old.Patrycja's incredible performance earned her
261 rating points, to 2387, and a check for $700!Sadorra?Well, he went
home with the Champion's Plaque and the $1,000 first place prize. The clear winner in the Reserve Division was Anthony
Guerra who finished with six points, claiming $800 for first place.In the Novice Division, there was a two-way
tie for first place between Sowmithri Jagadeeshi and Soham Daptardar, and both
received $450 for their efforts.With 175 players, this year's edition of the event was the
biggest in over 20 years.And, with
five GMs, six IMs and one WIM among the 53 players in the Championship
Division, it was also the strongest during the same period.The 77th Southwest Open was organized by
Luis Salinas and Barbara Swafford of the Dallas Chess Club, and directed by
Franc Guadalupe and Susan Breeding.For
standings and prize winners please visit the Dallas Chess Club website.For rated results, see the USCF MSA.New York by Steve Immitt

Alex Ostrovskiy

The 133rd edition of America's longest-running chess
tournament, the New York State Championship, held in Albany over Labor Day
Weekend, ended as it frequently has done in years before-- in a tie for
first.What set this year's finish
apart, however, was the lack of any out-of-staters in the Winners' Circle.Three New York State teenagers, seasoned veterans all,
divvied up the $3,000 in top prizes three ways:17-year-old Michael Chiang of Scarsdale, 17-year-old Deepak Aaron
of Glenvile (fresh from the just-concluded World Junior Championship in
India), and the 2010 defending New York State Champion, 15-year-old Alex
Ostrovskiy of Brooklyn each finished with 4½ points after six rounds.

Deepak Aaron

Michael Chiang, Photo Shaun Smith 2010

Michael Chiang finished with one half
tiebreak point more than Alex, wresting the State Championship title away from
him in the process and winning the $100 additional First Place Bonus prize to
boot.

Tied for 4th-5th
with 4 points and winning $300 each were Venezuelan IM Rafael Prasca Sosa and
another Brooklyn veteran, Yefim Treger.Treger's path to glory included probably the most amazing game of the
tournament: Treger was by all accounts completely lost against his
last-round opponent, 12-year-old Kapil Chandan for quite some time.But Treger is one player who literally does
not ever resign, and his determination certainly was rewarded this time when he
uncorked 43... Nd3 against his unsuspecting opponent, leaving his own Queen unguarded
while he went in search of something better.By snatching victory from the jaws of defeat in the last
round, not only did Yefim manage to secure a share of the prize fund, he also
affected the tiebreak order of finish of the three winners, leaving his own
imprint on the annals of New York State Chess.Viktor Levine of upstate Fayeteville swept the first five
rounds of the Under 2200 Section, then secured a last-round draw with
Brooklyn's Sam Barsky to win the $1,000 First Prize.Robert Campbell of Western Massachusetts and 18-year-old
Malik Perry of the Bronx each won their last-round game to finish with 5 points
and $750 atop the Under 2000 Section.David Finnerman of Albany was the sole victor with 5
points and $1,000 in the Under 1800 Section.David Brodsky of New York City ceded but one draw and five
wins to win the $800 First Prize in the Under 1600 Section.The Under 1300 Section also witnessed three players at the
top, this time with five points and $417 in prize money a piece: Brian
Bongiovanni of Massachusetts and New Yorkers Hong Jin and Jonah Klemper, whose
uncle, GM Joel Benjamin, already has his own name engraved on the Winners' List
of the New York State Championship trophy.

A hallmark of the Maryland chess calendar is
the Maryland Action and Blitz Championships which provides exciting and fast
games throughout the weekend.In the
action event, Jared Defibaugh captured the Maryland Action Title by defeating
IM Tegshsuren Enkhbat in the final round.Tying for second place were Jared's DC Chess League teammates Ian Schoch
and Andrew Tichenor.Notable
performances by players in the action event included Jerry Wu, Jeffrey
Heavener, William Moore and Joseph Chen among others.In the Blitz event, GM Larry Kaufman repeated as MD Blitz Champion
in convincing fashion while Quentin Moore of Virginia tied for first with Larry
by winning several crucial games.The
event was run by Wilbert Brown and Sathish Nath and all enjoyed this annual
event in Rockville.